GRRM makes the 2011 TIME 100 People

TIME magazine has honored bestselling fantasy author George R.R. Martin by including him on its Top 100 most influential people list for this year. The write-up was done by John Hodgman:

I had two missions last summer. One was to watch The Wire because I was tired of admitting I hadn't seen it. The other was to read George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones.

The experiences turned out to be surprisingly similar. Both kidnapped me to intimately drawn worlds with stories of a grim conflict and characters so achingly human that you end up rooting, tragically, for both sides. And neither one has dragons in it — at least, not at first. Martin, 62, is as fine a researcher as he is a storyteller, and he packs in enough miserable fact about the meanness of medieval life that it occasionally echoes Baltimore in its harshness.

With HBO's adaptation and Martin's long-awaited fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series about to be published, my endorsement isn't necessary. But I'll still feel compelled, like all those fans of The Wire, to pull you aside and tell you that Tyrion Lannister is the best character in fiction since Stringer Bell and that if you have not read these books, you should be ashamed of yourself.

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Follow this link for the full article.

Chris Wooding's RETRIBUTION FALLS

I read Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls nearly two years ago. It's a fun and entertaining scifi romp, and it will finally become available in the USA next week! For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe.

Here's the blurb:

Sky piracy is a bit out of Darian Frey’s league. Fate has not been kind to the captain of the airship Ketty Jay—or his motley crew. They are all running from something. Crake is a daemonist in hiding, traveling with an armored golem and burdened by guilt. Jez is the new navigator, desperate to keep her secret from the rest of the crew. Malvery is a disgraced doctor, drinking himself to death. So when an opportunity arises to steal a chest of gems from a vulnerable airship, Frey can’t pass it up. It’s an easy take—and the payoff will finally make him a rich man.

But when the attack goes horribly wrong, Frey suddenly finds himself the most wanted man in Vardia, trailed by bounty hunters, the elite Century Knights, and the dread queen of the skies, Trinica Dracken. Frey realizes that they’ve been set up to take a fall but doesn’t know the endgame. And the ultimate answer for captain and crew may lie in the legendary hidden pirate town of Retribution Falls. That’s if they can get there without getting blown out of the sky.

You can read my review here. And follow this link for a 50-page extract from Retribution Falls.

Check it out! =) Fans of Firefly won't be disappointed!

Robert Stanek shat directly into my soul: More

I'm sure you all remember my "Pathetic..." blog post regarding fantasy hack Robert Stanek, the legless wonder.

Well, understandably, such a hard-working author always has something on the backburner. Here's the blurb from his newest work:

Readers all over the world are discovering the works of Robert Stanek. Fans have called his books the Star Wars of fantasy, and liken his writing to a wonderful cross between JRR Tolkien and JK Rowling. We tend to think that the books are just plain fun to read. Filled with mystery, intrigue, adventure, and magic the books transport readers to a world unlike any other. In this insightful book, you get the real scoop on Robert Stanek. From his childhood days to his recent success with the Ruin Mist books, this outstanding book sheds new light on his life and his struggle to excel as a writer. His story is a story of hope and dreams, and in many ways, reading this book is like visiting with an old friend.

Robert Stanek: Candid Conversations About His Life, Work, and Writing. I kid you not. . .

WTF!?!

New dates for the Pat's Fantasy Hotlist World Tour!

Finally booked my flights yesterday, so it's now official!

Come June 2nd, I'll be flying away to beautiful Romania, the first country on my trip. My itinerary is nowhere near close to being done, but as things stand I'll be traveling through Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, with a couple of nights of partying in Belgrade, Serbia, at the end of my adventure.

If at all possible without having to curtail other segments of my trip, I will also try to visit parts of Moldova, Albania, and Kosovo.

I know that there are fans of the Hotlist from these parts, so I'll be letting you know in which cities/regions I'll be stopping when my itinerary is done. And maybe we can have a few drinks and shoot the shit when I'm in town! =)

Can't wait to travel overseas again!

Win a copy of Douglas Hulick's AMONG THIEVES

Since I received two copies of Douglas Hulick's debut novel, Among Thieves, I'm giving one away to one lucky winner! For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe.

Here's the blurb:

Ildrecca is a dangerous city, if you don’t know what you’re doing. It takes a canny hand and a wary eye to run these streets and survive. Fortunately, Drothe has both. He has been a member of the Kin for years, rubbing elbows with thieves and murderers from the dirtiest of alleys to the finest of neighborhoods. Working for a crime lord, he finds and takes care of trouble inside his boss’s organization—while smuggling relics on the side.

But when his boss orders Drothe to track down whoever is leaning on his organization’s people, he stumbles upon a much bigger mystery. There’s a book, a relic any number of deadly people seem to be looking for—a book that just might bring down emperors and shatter the criminal underworld.

A book now inconveniently in Drothe’s hand. . .

You can learn more about the author and his work on Hulick's official website. And you can read an extract from the book here.

The rules are the same as usual. You need to send an email at reviews@(no-spam)gryphonwood.net with the header "THIEVES." Remember to remove the "no spam" thingy.

Second, your email must contain your full mailing address (that's snail mail!), otherwise your message will be deleted.

Lastly, multiple entries will disqualify whoever sends them. And please include your screen name and the message boards that you frequent using it, if you do hang out on a particular MB.

Good luck to all the participants!

Game of Thrones: Episode 2 Preview

Can't wait!

Summer Knight

Having thoroughly enjoyed Jim Butcher's Storm Front (Canada, USA, Europe), Fool Moon (Canada, USA, Europe), and Grave Peril (Canada, USA, Europe), I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into the fourth installment, Summer Knight.

The Dresden Files book sequence has become one of the most popular series in the speculative fiction genre, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Though, so far, the series has been a bit formulaic and episodic in format, the misadventures of the wizard Harry Dresden have made for entertaining and fun-filled reads. Even better, most fans seem to agree that Summer Knight is the point where the series truly takes off.

Now done with the novel, I can confirm the fact that Butcher elevated his game, bringing the Dresden Files to a higher level and setting the stage for a lot of fireworks to come!

Here's the blurb:

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a very powerful wizard and a dedicated private eye. He is also a wise cracking trouble magnet.

Fueled by a tempest of guilt, sleep deprivation, malnutrition, bad temper and frankly awful personal grooming. Harry is hurtling toward oblivion. According to Harry that is nobody's business but his own.

The Winter Queen of Faerie manipulates him into accepting a case to solve a murder and stop a war between the courts of Summer and Winter that could have literally earth shattering consequences. His own soul is up for grabs. Dresden must dig deep to discover that at time a willingness to accept a little help from your friends, be they a cub pack of werewolves, old loves in sheep's clothing, or a battalion of pizza loving dewdrop fairies, is a very good thing.

Summer Knight features the first-person narrative of the endearing, if frequently inept, only professional wizard in the phonebook, Harry Dresden. As always, although he is never the strongest of light bulbs, I find it impossible not to root for Harry. His heart is in the right place, and his flawed nature makes him one of the most likeable characters out there.

The supporting cast once again gives the story its own distinctive flavor. We finally meet members of the secretive White Council, as well as members of both the Faerie courts. Through these new protagonists, we uncover truths about what the vampires are planning for Harry, and how the faerie conflict puts the entire world into jeopardy. Needless to say, the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan, and the sole wizard in Chicago finds himself right in the middle of it all.

The introduction of new concepts such as the various vampire Courts, the faeries, and the Knights of the Cross in Grave Peril hinted at the fact that this was a series that resounded with a lot more depth than met the eye. The addition of new characters and developments, especially with everything regarding the Summer and Winter Queens of Faerie and their entourages, demonstrates that the Dresden Files sequence is more multilayered than it appears at face value.

Another fast-paced urban fantasy offering, in Summer Knight we see evidence of a bigger, more ambitious overall story arc which promises a lot more to come. The first two volumes were a bit more linear in their approach, while Grave Peril featured quite a few surprises. This fourth installment builds on the previous three, making this one the most satisfying book in the series thus far.

Never quite expected that, but Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files is fast becoming one of my favorite series on the market today. Can't wait to find out what misadventures Harry Dresden will find himself in next!

The final verdict: 8/10

For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe

Game of Thrones premiere

Well, though expectations were sort of high, Game of Thrones delivered on basically all levels.

The various previews had demonstrated that this would be a quality series, but I was nevertheless blown away by the picture quality, the different settings, the costumes, the acting. Sean Bean makes a great Ned Stark.

The Dothraki scenes were a bit cheesy and overdone, but other than that I loved everything about this first episode.

And what a way to end it, eh!?! With a brother fucking his sister doggie style and throwing a child off a tower to die. "The things I do for love."

Think the mainstream public will like it??? Time will tell...

When I met GRRM in Montreal during Worldcon, we spoke at length about the HBO series. George explained how he turned down offers for more money because they didn't leave him any control or influence on the final product. Terry Goodkind may have made a bundle, but Legend of the Seeker turned out to be a farce, a travesty (not that the actual SoT saga was high-brow material to begin with).

During the first couple of minutes from Game of Thrones, you realize that the production captured the essence of the prologue from A Game of Thrones almost perfectly, setting the mood for all that is to come. Love the soundtrack as well, and here's to hoping that a CD will be available soon...

Label me excited! =)

Winter isn't coming. It's here! Can't wait for episode two next week!!!

Slate, New York Times to fantasy buffs: Grow up

Less than an hour to go before the premiere of Game of Thrones on HBO, and I just stumbled upon this.

This from salon.com:

Reviews of HBO's adaptation of "Game of Thrones" paint fantasy fiction as silly trash aimed at boys only.

I try to stay away from reviewing other people's reviews; "There but for the grace of God" and all that. But two recent pieces on HBO's "Game of Thrones" -- by Troy Patterson of Slate and Ginia Bellafante of The New York Times -- demand a response because they're deeply condescending.

Patterson's Slate review, titled "Quasi-Medieval, Dragon-Ridden Fantasy Crap: Art Thou Prepared to Watch 'Game of Thrones'?" is less a review than a creative writing exercise, penned in the style of....well, it's hard to say what, exactly. It's not a parody of George R.R. Martin's prose, which tends to avoid the turgid, translated-from-the-ancient-Hobbitesese diction that marks inferior sword-and-sorcery novels. It seems more like a goof on what Patterson imagines fantasy fiction to be.

There are unscalable slabs of expositionistic dialogue clogging the forward movement of the story. Sonorous and/or schmaltzy talk substitutes for the revelation of character through action. There is the sense of intricacy having been confused with intrigue and of a story transferred all too faithfully from its source and thus not transformed to meet the demands of the screen. For long stretches of each episode, the reviewer hangs on to consciousness only by trancing out on the strings of digits of the anti-counterfeiting watermark at the top of the screen, hanging on to the serifs by the nails.

The sex and violence also add interest, the former being unhealthily kinky, the latter abusively deft, both conducted with adolescent passion. No matter how dull the body of each installment of 'Game of Thrones,' it pulls itself together for a meticulously choreographed finish that builds its own discrete tension. The episode endings create anticipation like small marvels of cliff-hanging that erase the torpor of foregoing knightly knonsense from memory and get you hankering for the next look at the opening title sequence (which is a little masterpiece of welcoming design). Many of these cliffhangers depend on the infliction of imaginative horrors on women, precocious children, and four-legged animals, often with quite a light touch.

[...]

At least Patterson cops to never liking fantasy fiction, and even admits (hilariously) to canceling a date in college once he found out that the young woman in question attended Renaissance festivals dressed as a "serving wench." (That detail would have increased my interest, but to each his own.) Better to concede your prejudices upfront than re-frame them as proof of intellectual superiority and smear a genre and its fans as stupid, childish and low-class -- which is what Ginia Bellafante does in her New York Times review of "Thrones." Like Patterson, Bellafante somehow gets through a whole review without mentioning a single character or scene in detail. The piece is mainly interested in blasting TV for sexing-up the costume drama while de-carnalizing scripted shows set in modern times.

That's an intriguing premise. Unfortunately, Bellafante's gripes don't compute. "It says something about current American attitudes toward sex that with the exception of the lurid and awful 'Californication,' nearly all eroticism on television is past tense," Bellafante says, ignoring the likes of "Hung," "Rescue Me," "Skins," "Episodes," "Weeds," "Nurse Jackie," "Archer," "Sons of Anarchy," "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," and "True Blood," which the author herself cites as an example of HBO degrading its brand.

[...]

Then there's this doozy of a passage:

"...[Y]ou get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to 'The Hobbit' first. 'Game of Thrones' is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half."

Say what? The implication that women are predisposed to enjoy explicit sex scenes and female nudity may or may not be true, but it flies in the face of conventional industry wisdom about what women want from film and television. Filmmakers and TV producers are more likely to try to appeal to women by avoiding or deleting graphic sex and nudity while leaving in the kissing, cuddling, and heart-to-heart talks -- a patronizing strategy descended from the Old Hollywood "women's picture" and the early days of TV soaps. Is that what Bellafante is alluding to? If so, she's confusing the issue by conflating relationship melodrama with softcore porn.

As for the detail about Martin's work being "boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population's other half," (a) I doubt Martin would have spent so much time on the book's trysts, affairs and marriages if he didn't find them personally interesting, and (b) Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ursula K. le Guin, Carol Berg, Holly Phillips, Juliet Marillier, Lynn Flewelling, Jacqueline Carey and Sharon Shinn would be surprised to learn that they've been writing "boy fiction" all this time.

[...]

These reviews are also disappointing because they're penned by critics I like. Patterson is one of the sharpest, funniest TV reviewers out there, and Bellafante is the only one of the New York Times' primary TV critics who doesn't write as if the medium were innately unworthy of her time. Something about the subject matter brought out their inner snobs. No other popular genre would be treated with such knee-jerk distaste by critics for major publications.
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Follow this link to read the full piece by Matt Zoller Seitz.

Well, looks like Game of Thrones is leaving no one indifferent. We'll know in about 30 minutes just how good the series is.

Win an Advance Reading Copy of China Miéville's EMBASSYTOWN

Since I won't have the chance to read it prior to its release, I'm giving away my ARC of China Miéville's upcoming Embassytown. For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe.

Here's the blurb:

Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe.

Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie.

Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes.

Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts.

And that is impossible.

The rules are the same as usual. You need to send an email at reviews@(no-spam)gryphonwood.net with the header "EMBASSYTOWN." Remember to remove the "no spam" thingy.

Second, your email must contain your full mailing address (that's snail mail!), otherwise your message will be deleted.

Lastly, multiple entries will disqualify whoever sends them. And please include your screen name and the message boards that you frequent using it, if you do hang out on a particular MB.

Good luck to all the participants!

You can read an excerpt from the book here.

The Bleak "Game of Thrones" Needs More Light

Interesting article from The New York Times Magazine. Here are a few extracts:

The aim of fantasy, after all, is to awaken something sleeping in our imaginations — and Martin and the show’s creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, embrace this task with a passion, skirting dull expository groundwork in the early episodes in favor of those elements that are just preposterous enough to mirror the depravity of contemporary life. We dive right into orgiastic feasts, murderous snow zombies, Faustian bargains made with primitives and feverish acts of incest. This is fantasy, after all — and medieval fantasy at that — so why not? Naked breasts are intended to tumble from their leather bustiers, dwarves and bastards are meant to address each other as “Dwarf” and “Bastard,” and coitus should never, ever be missionary style.

In this way, fantasy as a genre seems to have an almost unfair advantage at allegorically chronicling our age. Elsewhere, the crudeness and savagery of modern life are artfully encoded in the palm-sweating desperation of the meth-dealing dad in “Breaking Bad,” the terse detachment of the pill-popping mom in “Nurse Jackie” or the quiet machinations of the enigmatic assassin in “Dexter.” But that brand of darkness has so thoroughly become the default syntax of cable dramas that even these sensational figures can’t quite jar us out of our somnambulant state. We apparently require gigantic walls of ice, supernatural wolf puppies, gory jousts, dragon eggs and a nomadic warrior who looks like Dave Navarro after heavy steroid use. Maybe it takes the grand scale of sybaritic kings and imaginary kingdoms to do justice to the perversions and the nihilism of post-empire America.

[...]

Fantasy, for all its imaginative potential, is fertile ground for nihilists. This can be useful. For one, it enables its writers to personalize viciousness in ways that could never be accomplished in contemporary realism. When, on “Game of Thrones,” a princess begs her brother not to force her to marry a savage whose language she doesn’t understand (a situation not unfamiliar to your average single female), he coldly informs her that he would let the entire savage tribe have its way with her if that might restore him to power. (“All 40,000 men and their horses, too, if that’s what it took.”) When the queen’s son tries to convince her that a rival clan is their enemy, she spits, “Everyone who isn’t us is an enemy.” By repositioning a familiar message — “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” — in medieval-fantasy terms, the show’s creators force us to view its ghastliness with fresh eyes. In contrast to the uneasy alienation of dropping bombs on countries thousands of miles away, “Game of Thrones” presents its carnage in such extreme close-up that it can’t be ignored. Heads are sliced off with stunning regularity, innocents are harmed or killed without much hesitation and the camera lingers lovingly on each surge of blood.

[...]

All of which is very somber — and a little odd, when you think about it. Even with countless horrors on the way, wouldn’t there be at least one unshakable optimist in the bunch? Isn’t that how we, in the real world, get through life? Irrational optimism in the face of looming bleakness? Yet in this brand of fantasy, grim-faced nihilism isn’t just a default philosophy; it’s a foundational religion.

And why, while we’re on the subject, do the authors of medieval fantasy so often restrict themselves to sullen thugs and solemn royals, instead of serving up a more varied palette of characters to reflect the stubbornly cheerful drones and twitchy neurotics of modern times? Why do authors limit themselves to somber dialogue that they consider period-appropriate, a compulsion as specious as associating France with French fries jokes? Whereas sci-fi fantasies gamely employ playful, contemporary dialogue, Dark-Ages-flavored narratives appear to require the repetitive, sludgy talk of honor and impending bloodshed. Aside from Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), a snarky dwarf, and Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen), a crafty adviser to the king, the characters of “Game of Thrones” rarely speak without sounding ponderous and sour. Unless two characters are discussing the joys of sex or drinking, there’s not much lightness; only anger, disillusionment and apprehension.

Follow this link for the full piece.

Quote of the Day

My fashion sense is somewhat stunted, but I still had to wonder. What do you wear to a war.

- JIM BUTCHER, Summer Knight (Canada, USA, Europe)

This week's New York Times Bestsellers (April 12th)

In hardcover:

Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches maintains its position at number 15. For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe.

Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear is down one position, ending the week at number 17. For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe.

Paul S. Kemp's Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived is down fourteen spots, finishing the week at number 27.

Patricia Briggs' River Marked is down four spots, finishing the week at number 32.

In paperback:

Charlaine Harris' Dead in the Family debuts at number 3.

George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones is down two positions, ending the week at number 10.

George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones is up four spots, finishing the week at number 30 (trade paperback).

Jim Butcher's Changes is down eleven spots, finishing the week at number 32.

Peter Orullian contest winners!

Our three winners will get their hands on Peter Orullian's fantasy debut, The Unremembered, courtesy of the nice folks at Tor Books. For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe.

You can also take a look at the fifth webisode set in the universe of The Vault of Heaven.

The winners are:

- Patrick Kelly, from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

- Assaf Vestin, from Huntington, New York, USA

- Stephanie M. Lorée, from Toledo, Ohio, USA

Many thanks to all the participants!

Game of Thrones "Epic" trailer

T-minus 3 days. . .

Sunday night can't come soon enough!

R. Scott Bakker contest winners!

The book is out in Canada and the USA!!! =)

Thanks to the generosity of the folks at The Overlook Press, our winners will receive a complimentary copy of R. Scott Bakker's The White-Luck Warrior. For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe.

The winners are:

- Joshua Pryor, from Cadiz, Kentucky, USA

- Eric Toczek, from Tonawanda, New York, USA

- Ryan Sposato, from Rochester, New York, USA

- Wil Barnes, from La Grange, North Carolina, USA

- Nate Burnard, from Huntington, Indiana, USA (Bonehunter on malazanempire.com)

Many thanks to all the participants!

Argentina and Chile photo album

Totally forgot to post these pics! So here are the remaining pictures from Argentina and Chile.

Just follow this link to have a look. . .

The Dragon's Path

Mea culpa: Although I own every volume part of Daniel Abraham's The Long Price Quartet, I have yet to read the first installment. Hence, this would be my first foray into the author's long form works. I absolutely loved Leviathan Wept and Other Stories last summer, and I was thus looking forward to reading the opening chapter in The Dagger and the Coin sequence.

Though certain facets of The Dragon's Path show a lot of promise and potential, I had mixed feelings about the novel as a whole when I reached the last page.

Here's the blurb:

Summer is the season of war in the Free Cities.

Marcus wants to get out before the fighting starts. His hero days are behind him and simple caravan duty is better than getting pressed into service by the local gentry. Even a small war can get you killed. But a captain needs men to lead — and his have been summarily arrested and recruited for their swords.

Cithrin has a job to do — move the wealth of a nation across a war zone. An orphan raised by the bank, she is their last hope of keeping the bank’s wealth out of the hands of the invaders. But she’s just a girl and knows little of caravans, war, and danger. She knows money and she knows secrets, but will that be enough to save her in the coming months?

Geder, the only son of a noble house is more interested in philosophy than swordplay. He is a poor excuse for a soldier and little more than a pawn in these games of war. But not even he knows what he will become of the fires of battle. Hero or villain? Small men have achieved greater things and Geder is no small man.

Falling pebbles can start a landslide. What should have been a small summer spat between gentlemen is spiraling out of control. Dark forces are at work, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon’s Path — the path of war.

The worldbuilding is at times brilliant, but this aspect also leaves much to be desired in other instances. The entire back story regarding dragons and their fallen empire was utterly fascinating, and I wish we could have learned more about it. The many vestiges of the dragons' civilization definitely added depth to this tale, hinting at countless secrets from the past left to be discovered. Another concept which could have been interesting but turned out to be a failure to launch was the various races. For reasons that remain unexplained, humanity is now split into thriteen different races, all of them born from the Firstblood mold. Problem is, other than disparate physical traits, it appears that humanity, as a whole or sundered in its myriad forms, has no history, mythology, and religion; nothing to give each of the races its identity as a society. So much had been made concerning the thirteen races prior to the book's release that I was persuaded that this would set The Dragon's Path apart from the competition. I was expecting a panoply of diverse cultures, all with their own traditions and beliefs. Sadly, the total absence of depth in that regard -- thus far -- was a definite letdown.

The politicking isn't polished enough, I felt, and in the end everything seemed a bit too contrived for my taste. In terms of court intrigue, not every author can be as talented as George R. R. Martin or Katherine Kurtz. And yet, if a good chunk of your premise depends on this, then the politicking needs to be up to snuff.

The characterization did nothing for me, unfortunately. Which is odd, given the fact that it's not because the story isn't populated by well-defined protagonists. Most characters are nicely realized men and women, each with his or her own back story. But for some reason -- and God knows I've tried to put my finger on it in the last two weeks -- the characters all left me indifferent. Which doesn't really bode well for me. One must give Daniel Abraham credit for playing with our own preconceptions of fantasy stereotypes. The author managed to mix things up by using popular genre tropes, only to turn the table on the readers later on. Still, Marcus was never able to rise above the clichéd warrior who has seen enough of violence. The same can be said of Dawson, the typical nobleman. Though she did nothing for me as a character, Cithrin's storylines is likely the most interesting of the bunch. Abraham tackling commerce and everything it encompasses as an arc shows a lot of promise. The most intriguing character remains the Apostate, and I'm curious to see how his plotline will influence the rest of the series.

The pace is a bit uneven here and there, yet the novel's narrative flows well for the most part. The prose doesn't grab hold of you the way I anticipated, but it does create a vivid imagery.

The structure of the book follows that of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Instead of regular chapter, the book is divided in POV sections. The Dragon's Path features the points of view of Marcus, Geder, Cithrin, Dawson and his wife Clara, as well as that of the Apostate.

All in all, though it might not be the sort of opening chapter I was expecting, The Dragon's Path shows a lot of potential. Whether or not Daniel Abraham can up his game in the second installment remains to be seen. Yet, as many have pointed out, The Long Price Quartet got better and better with each new volume, so here's to hoping that it will be the case here as well.

Though The Dragon's Path is a solid effort, in several aspects the execution fell a little flat.

The final verdict: 7.25/10

For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe

Wicked Pretty Things and the Erasure of LGBTQ Characters

Thanks to Patrick Rothfuss for spreading the word about this! =)

This from Jim C. Hines website:

Last night, my six-year-old and I had a chat. I don’t remember how it came up, but he was talking about people getting married, and how boys have to marry girls. I pointed out that this wasn’t necessarily so, that in some states and many countries, boys could marry boys and girls could marry girls.

Being six, he laughed. “That’s silly. How would they have babies?”

It’s not the first time we’ve had a talk like this. I understand where his confusion comes from. Pretty much every cartoon on TV has male/female relationships only. Every movie he watches, every book he brings home from school… Any nonheterosexual relationship is simply erased.

Last month, Jessica Verday withdrew her story from the Wicked Pretty Things anthology after receiving a note from the editor which stated that her story “would have to be published as a male/female story because a male/male story would not be acceptable to the publishers.”

Wicked Pretty Things is an anthology of dark fairy romance … but apparently editor Trisha Telep assumed that meant straight romance only, going with the default erasure of any “nontraditional” relationships.

Verday later posted a response in which Telep apologized for causing offense, and said in part, “I sincerely regret the sequence of events which has led to Jessica Verday’s story ‘Flesh Which Is Not Flesh’ being excluded from the forthcoming anthology Wicked Pretty Things. This has been the result of a misunderstanding on my part which is entirely regrettable … I fully support LGBTQ issues.”

I understand and believe that Telep meant no harm. That it was a mistake, not intended to be hurtful. But it was hurtful.

Other authors such as Seanan McGuire, Lisa Mantchev, Lesley Livingston, and Karen Mahoney have pulled their stories from the anthology. Melissa Marr asked that her name not be used to promote the project (she had provided a cover blurb Correction: they were apparently describing the anthology as including stories with a “Melissa Marr-ish slant.”) Ann Aguirre pulled her story from another of Telep’s projects.

Running Press responded in an article titled The Misinformation Age, saying, “Third-party error and miscommunication went viral and led to the spread of untrue accusations of intolerance and censorship.”

Where exactly are these untrue accusations? I’m not aware of any lies in Verday’s post, or in the posts by the other authors involved. Is intolerance an inappropriate word to describe an editor who says “No gay love allowed,” even if it was a misunderstanding?

More importantly, why was this an issue to begin with? The publisher may have disavowed responsibility for Telep’s actions, but why did Telep immediately assume that a story in which two male characters were in love would be unacceptable?

Pulling a story from an anthology is scary. You risk alienating editor and publisher both, not to mention turning down a paycheck. You worry about appearing unprofessional. And you wonder if you’ll find another home for the story you worked so hard on…

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’d like to extend an offer to any author who pulled his or her story from one of Telep’s projects as a result of this incident.

1- If you have not already found a home for your withdrawn story, I would be happy to read it.
2- If I like the story (and knowing most of the authors involved, I suspect I will), I’ll offer $100 up front to publish it here on my blog.
3- Each story will include a donations link. Once the initial $100 has been covered, further donations will be split 50/50. Half will be paid to the author, and the other half will be donated to a LGBTQ-friendly cause.
4- If I publish multiple stories, I will look into putting together an e-book collection of those stories, with profits again being split between the authors and a LGBTQ-friendly cause.

I get about 2000 unique readers each day, which is comparable to (or in some cases better than) the sales for a number of the anthologies out there. That said, I’ll certainly understand if the authors choose to look elsewhere. It sounds like Verday has already found another home for her story, which is great. My offer is not time-limited.

I am not trying to poach authors from Running Press. However, I do want to support and thank those authors who’ve chosen to publicly state that the erasure of non-straight characters and relationships is not okay. One way I can do that is by offering a home for those stories.
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Great initiative!

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